Despite ban, Kol Book Fair fixes date with fans

BOOK-LOVERS REJOICE: As Kolkata Book Fair will be taking place despite the hindrance.

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Kolkata: After months of uncertainty, the Kolkata Book Fair will now be held in March, not in Park Circus Maidan but the Salt Lake stadium.

A week after the Calcutta High Court banned the international book fair at the Park Circus Maidan, the government has wrested the proprietorship of an alternate fair from the Publishers and Booksellers' Guild.

Secretary, Publishers & Booksellers Guild, Tridib Chatterjee said, "The permanent fairground allotted by the state government is not big enough to host the Kolkata Book Fair. We are participating in this alternative fair to register our protest."

A steering committee, having equal representations from publishers' associations vis-à-vis those belonging to the guild, is being formed to organize the fair.

And the state's Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Subhas Chakraborty will head the committee and oversee the fair's management of finances.

Subhas Chakraborty said, "We are happy that despite the hindrances we are able to organize a book fair, though I would not enjoy the status of Kolkata Book Fair."

The guild had initially decided not to hold a book fair this year after the ban was imposed. But it ran the danger of splitting into two, and gave in to pressures from the government and rival publishers.

Having taken care of those complications, the government is now trying to attract foreign publishers participating in the Delhi book fair to this fair.

Irrespective of that result, book lovers of this city can keep their date with the literary carnival.